I’ve been playing around with ideas for watercolor style tattoos for a couple weeks on my downtime at the studio. Since some of them are really fun, I figured I’d go ahead and share them here. If anyone wants me to tattoo one of them on you, holla. The first two are different concepts for the same dancer. The lion and elephant aren’t related, but I’ve seen a lot of people getting generic tattoos of lions and elephants, so I wanted to play with making them really unique.

While I’ve been posting a lot of fun merchandise with my art on it, I haven’t highlighted any of the dance art yet. Here’s where I remedy that. As you’ve probably already seen, I’m offering a calendar with some of my dancer paintings, but I’ve also created several black and white dancer “sketches” and added them to all kinds of cool stuff on RedBubble and Fine Art America. Click on the caption below each picture to purchase and/or see more options:

I finally got my butt in gear and created a calendar featuring my dance art and some fun quotations. I’ve been talking about doing it for years, and really, I waited until just about the last possible minute, but I did it. Yay me! Anyway, here is a link to said creation. If you know anyone who might be interested (a dancer, and dance enthusiast, a dance parent, the queen – don’t ask me which queen, but surely one is a dance buff since they’re all culture-y and stuff) please pass this on to them: https://www.createphotocalendars.com/Store/Dancers+2017-2343896905

Obviously, I’ve been watching So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) again this season. While I love it, it makes me miss my grandmother, Muddy, terribly. Before she met my grandfather, Muddy (Beatrice Allen) was a dancer. In fact, she met my grandfather while she was in Germany touring with Ruth St. Dennis. When she decided to settle down and get married at the ripe old age of 19, she gave up dancing professionally and got rid of all of her photos and other mementos from her dancing days. This, obviously, saddens me because I’d love to see that stuff. But what saddens me more, and what makes me miss her more acutely, is watching the dance shows on TV now, particularly SYTYCD. The variety of styles you get from the myriad of choreographers would, I think, overwhelm her, delight her, sharpen her. When you look at what these dancers are capable of now compared to what was asked of them in her early dance years, it reminds me of looking at footage of early gymnasts compared to now. Hell, to be a dancer now, you have to also have a pretty good arsenal of gymnastic tricks, too. If you don’t have a front aerial, you’re going to have a hard time working.

But I just wish that she were around now so that we could watch together and discuss what we were seeing. I would love to share that with her because I know her insight would be incredible. As you’ve seen on this blog from the Mondays With Muddy posts, you know what a thoughtful and thought-full person she was. I know she would have helped me see each dance, dancer, and choreographer from a different angle. I know it’s just a reality show, but there is real art happening there.

Having moved away from doing so many dancer paintings, I think maybe I’m feeling the gap between Muddy and myself more acutely than normal. So perhaps it’s time to figure out how to revisit that work in a new way. I’m thinking maybe I need to combine the realist work with dance imagery. Still trying to flesh out what that will look like, but definitely a direction I want to pursue.

As an aside, be sure to read next week’s Mondays With Muddy post. It’s my favorite from the whole manuscript, and, indirectly, talks about the first time people said she was a good dancer.

It’s Fat Tuesday, ya’ll. And my dad was a jazz musician. So here’s what you’re going to do. I’m serious. Do it. Step one, get an umbrella and open it. I know you’re inside. I don’t care. Do it. Step two, start the video below. Don’t watch it, just start Step Three: stand up. Step Four: Dance. That’s it. Just dance. Raise that umbrella up and down like you’re in the second line. Don’t stop dancing. If someone is with you, make them dance, too. It doesn’t matter that they don’t have rhythm or think they can’t dance. It’s just marching. And celebrating.

Okay, guys. Hopefully you’ve been taking a look at the dancer paintings I’ve been posting over the last week. If not, stop, go back and scroll through them for a second. I haven’t done any new ones lately, and was all geared up to get started when suddenly, out of nowhere, I didn’t. Sometimes, if I watch the news too much and see us all shooting each other full of holes and blowing each other up into tiny little smithereens, I lose all hope for humanity, and the creative juices dry right up and I want to hide from the world. Then god spoke to me. Okay, not really god. Bourbon. Bourbon spoke to me. Bourbon has kind of a husky, slightly gravely voice. It’s pretty damn sexy, if I’m being honest. Anyway, Bourbon said to me, “Look, you whiny little twit, you know damn fine people, and you make damn fine art. Why not combine the two for a damn fine experience?” I looked Bourbon in the eye and said, “What-the-what?” To which Bourbon replied, “It’s called crowd sourcing dip shit. Now stop being a wuss and give me another ice cube.”

Fair enough. So, dear damn fine people, we are going on a little adventure together. I’m going to let you decide how my next dancer painting evolves, and together we’re going to create something beautiful for the world that didn’t exist before. Every few days (as each layer of paint dries), I’m going to let you choose colors, poses, textures, etc. We’ll start today by choosing what color palette should peak through in the background. Again, feel free to go back to the Preludes posts leading up to today and look for the little flecks of color that show here and there. Then vote (just give me the number to the left of the row you want) in the comments below or on Facebook if you follow me there. Deadline to vote is 10pm 12/10/15.

Like this:

My head is way too clogged with mucous to write anything either witty or profound (do you like that I assume that I am normally capable of doing both?), so instead, here’s some art from my Dancer series: